Frisbie’s CEO talks to Concord press corps

Thursday

Nov 14, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By John Nolanjnolan@fosters.com

ROCHESTER — Frisbie Memorial Hospital CEO Al Felgar travelled to Concord on last Thursday morning to meet with the State House media corps. His mission was to apprise them of the harmful impact that Frisbie’s exclusion from Anthem BlueCross/Blue Shield’s network of providers under the Affordable Care Act, will have on his hospital.

He also informed them that he has filed a request for a formal hearing with the New Hampshire Department of Insurance.

“The state is obligated to respond, but I don’t know when,” said Felgar, back in his office that afternoon. He wants to be supplied with the data that convinced NH Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny to sign off on Anthem’s submitted plan earlier this year.

Felgar has consistently said that he would match Wentworth-Douglass Hospital deal with Anthem, but has not been given the opportunity to sit down and negotiate with the insurance company.

Felgar was asked by the Rochester Times what the next move would be if Sevigny repeated his Sept. 20 answer to the Frisbie CEO — that “the Insurance Department does not have the authority to require a health carrier to contract with any particular provider.”

Sevigny added, in his letter, “The Insurance Department reviewed the provider network that is associated with Anthem’s Pathway products and found that this network meets the state’s network adequacy standards.”

Felgar’s recourse now may be a legal one.

“The next step would be to go to the Superior and Supreme Court,” he said. “We want a release of information from the Insurance Commissioner, and are also contesting the failure to give us a hearing.”

He said her had hoped that representatives from five other New Hampshire hospital excluded from Anthem’s network would have joined him in Concord on Thursday, but they didn’t. He is still hopeful that they will join him if he is granted a hearing by the Insurance Commissioner.

“When is one dominant player any good for anything?” he asked. “I am fighting for the hospital, the patients and the city.”

According to an Associated Press report later last Thursday afternoon, the New Hampshire Insurance Department will hold a public hearing to address Felgar’s concerns about being excluded from the network of providers for those purchasing individual health insurance plans under the federal health overhaul.